End of Day Journal (5-12-2010)

Well, a roller coaster of a day.

I decided to take a different approach today (after receiving what I thought was some great advice from readers). Basically, I decided to be much more judicious in my entries, not entering every new high/low: only entering stocks that I had been watching/tracking, and entering at some pre-determined price point. Or entering on new highs/lows supported by strong market action. Yesterday's CAM setup was a beauty, and I kept that posted in my third monitor today while I traded. After the morning break I switched up the MA candlestick pattern indicator to a 15 min doji rather than a 5 minute doji, which basically alerts me to something along the lines of the CAM setup. For the sake of posterity, here is yesterday's CAM:

Nothing that sophisticated, just a stall and a breakout, but this is what I wanted to watch for.

Here is the account performance for today:

+$1676.96 w/o commissions, +$1571.74 with commissions; making that $105.22 in commissions across what NT calls 120 trades: 71 trades in IB, 35 positions +1 scale. And a lot of those happen to be in one stock.

Let's see how I did on the plan (lost of rambling here, for my own sake - I want to get better).

AIG on a breaking low, with great market support. Timed the entry well, but fizzled on the exit. The candle went green and I bailed, only to see it break the low. Later another new low with a bad entry. Stopped out on that one. I tried again later with another stop. A couple of things on these trades. The first short was in a market fear mode. I was watching as it beat a path to the low, as soon as it broke I entered. The next candle was a planned stop break, 3 ticks over the previous low. The place to buy would have been the break thru the 4 short candles; but the S/R was not tight enough for my liking. The second was the same situation - entry should have been on the support break thru, not the new low. The first showed a 15 minute doji - before I had the MA indicator changed over. The last entry was a bad move - and after SY - my head wasn't screwed on right (-$183) (1/3 entries good, 1/3 total):

ATLS- new low and a poor choice. It did have something like a 15 min doji proceeding, but the wicks were very long (-$29.93) (0/1 entries good, 1/4 total):

BID breaking resistance, I was using the wicks - the resistance was a little scattered. However - the 9:25 breakout was a thing of beauty. I was watching it up until 9 o'clock, but took a break (-$39.96) (0/1 good entries, 1/5 total):

CAM breaking support, fizzled and stopped. However, I think this was a good entry by the established criteria (-$24.96) (1/1 good entry, 2/6 total):

CIT breaking the low with good market support. I had been watching it climb all morning, and then take the long walk down. I could have been quicker on the entry but it worked. I reversed on exit for most of the next bar (+$260) (2/2 good entries, 4/8 total):

COF off of the doji and fizzled. Not 100% sure what justified the second entry, maybe I felt robbed. It was working until I bumped the stop up a little too quickly and it touched (-$9.99) (1/2 good entries, 5/9 total):

FLR looked like it wanted to turn around. I was late with no proper support. Stopped. Later it broke near term support only to turn around ( I think the entry was good). I was watching for it to break the high with a decent entry. Stopped and reversed. Rode it down to previous support level and went long as the next candle turned green. This entry did not have a stop because I forgot to select the correct strategy. And in the mean time SY came along and kept me busy (-$83) (4/5 good entries, 9/14 total):

 New low on GES. No support on this one, but I was watching it. Going to call it a bad entry, even though I made money and timed the entry and exit pretty well (+$47) (0/1 good entries, 9/15 total):

TDA alert on INFA with strong market direction. I called it long, but reversed as the next candle went red. Proceeded to get stopped out (-$65) (1/2 good entries, 10/17 total):

SNDK was breaking into a new high. I went long. Stopped. (-$30) (0/1 good entries, 10/18 total):

SY. What to say about this? it came up on my TDA alert with a price of $42.26. By the time I was looking at it in NT and ready to buy it was at $52.91. I went long on that price. and got stopped out immediately (stop default was set to 50 ticks). I blinked a couple of times and went in again. As soon as I got in, I pulled the stop back, then went in again. 1000 shares. Rode it for $2.74 close to the 5 minute mark. Then I entered on the next green candle. I can't remember what all happened, but I had a discretionary exit at a loss, re-entered with 500 shares for another $2 run. I was sitting just shy of $3.5k, but I kept flipping back to it. Later I tried to play it some more and got burned times 2. I called it right both times but choose the discretionary exit as it bumped around. $10 dip if I would have ridden it right, but I was nervous; I suspect the more I do this, the better I will get at it. Scott would have nailed it lol (+$1898.79) (err - I will go 1/2 good entries on this, hard to call it. My exits were nervous and there was plenty of room - but hard to call, I have never seen a price shoot around like that; 11/20 total):

I had been watching WRC hover. Then SY came along. I entered very late and should not have entered at all (-$62.99) (0/1 good entry, 12/21 total):

12/21 good entries on my proprietary scale: 12/21 = 57%. Not good. But I think it is much improved from the two days prior.

I wouldn't have made any money today if it wouldn't have been for SY. But after SY, I was finding it very hard to concentrate - as evidenced by WRC, SNDK, INFA, and the late AIG. By the time I entered CAM I had made a concentrated decision to forget about SY and trade effectively. Still loss money, but I think the entry was what it should be.

I think today's market was another chop session. I could of made money on INFA and BID (if I would have kept trading over the break), but nothing that spectacular.  High point (prior to SY) was $252 just before morning break, but before I took a break, I had an FLR trade that knocked it down to $169. By the time I was trading SY I think I was at something like +$8 for the day.

I want to go back over the charts on my good days and try to identify what made those entries good before trading tomorrow.

I could of made bank on SY lol. But still a good day.